Rhythmical figures in Pindar

Abstract

The article puts forward a new functionalist approach to Pindaric meter, inspired by Snell’s dynamic analysis of lyric cola and research on rhythm in modern European syllabo-accentual poetry. Pindar is shown to employ cola-like syllable series, termed rhythmical figures (for example, long sequences of light syllables), as local prosodic events within individual poems that belong (mostly) to the non-dactylo-epitritic (“Aeolic”) subcorpus of the epinikia. These rhythmical figures are often buttressed by word boundaries, especially toward the beginning of the poem, making them more easily perceptible. Pindar’s use of this device reveals an added level of complexity in metrical responsion, which extends beyond rhythm and lexical recurrence to prosodic phrases marked by word boundaries.